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Grade seven was a big reading year for me. Alex Haley’s Roots proved that the human heart can beat even in darkness. Gerald Green’s Holocaust, on the other hand, was my initiation to an abyss that could swallow even the echo of a heartbeat. Not exactly The Cat in the Hat — but a good primer for my future in the leper colony.

While Green’s fictional account was my first waltz with what knowing Hebrews call the Shoah, it wouldn’t be my last. The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi, The Face of the Third Reich by Joachim C. Fest, The Destruction of the European Jews by Raul Hilberg — all contributed to my fluency in the unfathomable. Richard C. Lukas’s The Forgotten Holocaust even revealed how the first semester for Germany’s faculty of ethnic cleansing was launched in September 1939, with all things Polish on the curriculum.

But for all this enlightening reading, the gnawing question I couldn’t shake for years was, “How?” As in, how did a civilization that brought us Gutenberg and Gesner, Bach and Beethoven, Goethe and the Brothers Grimm — how did that civilization ever trend to genocide? Remember, these are the same folks who invented public university. And then went on to build an assembly line for barbecuing the neighbours. Forget the Colonel’s secret recipe. The greatest mystery of the 20th century is how a pluralistic meritocracy founded on universal civil rights can become the franchise for Haters ’R’ Us.

I was reminded again this week of just how important that question is — while reviewing the minutiae of Prince Peter MacKay’s (my apologies to Machiavelli) new Victims Bill of Rights. At first, I wasn’t so sure I should. Twenty years of swilling dungeon slop has left me severely allergic to anything composed of (or by) nuts. But after decades of paying down my own moral mortgage to society, I wanted to see if those most hurt by my dark deeds were finally getting their money’s worth. The verdict? After yawning through all 49 pages of the new law, I can verify what most pundits and victims’ advocates already have: “Keep moving folks, nothing to see here.” Well, almost nothing.

Though nearly everyone agrees that this new formula for saving the world from the devil on our shoulder won’t do much for Canadians, history says it’s sure to do something to them. Like clause 48, which now allows you to run the neighbourhood nuisance out of town — forever. With a simple tweet to the Parole Board of Canada, Billy bud farmer from the basement down the street can be restricted — after serving every minute of his mandatory prison term — “from going to any specific place.”

This is great news for the recently denuded CBC, which is apparently shopping for low-cost reality TV fodder to fill its prime-time palate. Location, Location, Conviction (or alternatively, Flip that Con) would be a mash-up of Law & Order, Extreme Couponing, and Lizard Lick Towing, co-hosted by Vic Toews and Mike Holmes — with the Dragons’ Den gang playing permanent parole board members. Perhaps the season premiere could feature the P.E.I. property holdings of Mike Duffy.

In 1939 Germany, a similar government policy carried the catchy title Lebensraum. In his convincing account of that time, Richard Lukas writes: “To the Nazis, the Poles were Untermenschen (subhumans) who occupied land which was part of the Lebensraum (living space) coveted by the superior German race.” Maybe that’s what made Mr. Hitler’s Aug. 22, 1939, encouragement to his fellow countrymen such a natural, when he admonished to kill “without pity or mercy all men, women and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space we need.” The result was 6,028,000 permanently evicted Poles — half of whom couldn’t even spell Menorah. Evidently, nothing says open season on undesirables like a For Sale sign.

The other tasty tidbit in the Conservatives’ latest anti-crime cheesecake is clause 46, which gives a victim the date and time of the bad guy’s release from prison, his home (and work) address, and a recent colour photograph. Finally, the federal government has figured out a labour market for that evasive 16-to-24 demographic whose dominant skill set is first-person shooters. All I can say is don’t flush those bitcoins yet, folks. In post ’39 Poland, the low-paid extermination squads who bayoneted, bludgeoned and buried alive a half million Jews bore the big-money moniker Einsatzgruppen (Special Action Groups). Not nearly as sexy as Economic Action Plan, but definitely easier to remember when you’re looking for the app.

The unsavoury irony in all of this is that 2014 is the year Canada finally opens the front gates to its own public mediation on state-sponsored sorrow. And while the groundkeepers at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights debate which blooms of horror will get northern exposure this summer, those same old populist, wedge-issue talking points that fertilized a generation of genocide have never been trendier. From Burkas to Bitumen, from Borscht-eaters to the Beagle Brothers, Canadians have never been more oiled up for an enemy of convenience. And that, I imagine, is the answer to my question.

I.M GreNada is the pen name of a Canadian prisoner who has been serving life for murder since 1994. The people he writes about are real, but their names have been changed. You can read more about him at theincarceratedinkwell.ca.

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